Guests and guests...and quail

Wednesday evening and we are watching televison (almost 9 pm) waiting for Victor to arrive back in the village with his guests. They are returning from Crimea today. There is some apple/pear cobbler cooling, and they are bringing some ice cream to go with it. Garry just made a pot of the new coffee I picked up at Metro today, he says he likes the taste. We keep trying different brands in the coffeemaker, because he doesn't like the brands there, we used to buy Maxwell House but they haven't had it lately. We know someone who brings their favorite coffee in their suitcase when they come back to Ukraine !



Today Garry and Maxim finished getting the chopper back together and ready to go. They put the grass header back on, since they decided to chop the hay Max mowed this week back onto the ground (too many weeds in it to feed the cows, but its good to cut the weeds off so they don't go to seed.)




This afternoon Garry went into Dnepro and picked up Olga Maslo, who works with the CCL part of our mission group, she's one of the Ukrainian missionaries who works with our mission. She helped Garry find material for his VBS this summer. Olya (every Olga I have met here is called Olya for a nickname I think) wanted to bring her two children out to see the farm. The kids are city kids for sure, they are afraid of the cats, dogs, cows.... Andrey even held his nose when we walked in the barn because of the smell, which Garry found hilarious because he thinks that the city smells more than cow manure.



but not the baby ducks, Aliya even held one.
















The ladies were milking when they came, almost finished so we went out to the barn, the milk buyer lady's guys were here with the yellow van waiting until Yana and Genia were finished milking so they could buy all the milk. One of the cows kicked the milk bucket over when we walked in front of the cows, luckily, the lid stayed on so no milk spilled. The kids did like the brownies I made yesterday, but they were scared when Jonah's cat wanted to jump up and get petted. By the time they left they had gotten a little less scared of Polo the dog, they even patted him a few times.









They also saw the baby quail. We found a use for the boys' old hamster cage. Yana is trying to raise thesw little guys, Maxim caught them while he was mowing yesterday. I drove Olya and the kids back to Metro (that's when I bought the coffee) afterwards, it was the first time I drove since coming back. You just have to remember to always be aware of both the slow and fast cars on the road and how they will interact with your vehicle.



Look Garry has finally hooked up the two waterbowls I brought back in January for the heifer pens, now no one accidently runs over the little tub wheil filling it for the calves and makes a mess in the cows' eating area!

Our son Josh phoned this afternoon, just as Seth was getting on the bus to school (there is a big time difference) apparently Seth is having a great time going to high school. I talked to Jonah on the weekend, he is enjoying physics, and any other classes with new things to learn. It is really quiet around here with the boys in Canada, but I am working on crocheting Christmas presents for our granddaughters now.

Baby ducks

Monday morning Victor took his guests touring for a couple days so we have the house almost to ourselves (except for Maxim. Garry worked on his porch's soffit/fascia- he had trouble fitting the large piece on the side, but discovered a bump where it didn't fit well had a cause- his chisel had slid down under it over the weekend. He's a little disappointed with the color, he ordered red and it's more maroon, not sure how it will look with the red roof.

After lunch, Garry decided he needed some screws to fasten his metal down, so we combined shopping for screws with a trip to the bowling lanes at MOCT city center mall. Garry won all four games this week, we bowl by the hour and we get a little more than four games in in that time. Luckily this time I am not as sore the day after as I was when we bowled ten days ago!




Today I hung out some wash as it was a lovely warm sunny day. Yana and her mother Genia were wearing sweatshirts for milking this afternoon, it seems Ukrainians are not as warm as we are.






Garry is working on putting the chopper back together this afternoon. I picked some peppers and a couple late ears of corn for tonight, and Garry picked the dry string beans- maybe they will make good seed to plant next spring.

Yana and her mother have had the baby ducks in the summer kitchen since they hatched; only eight hatched about a dozen never made it out of the shells, the ladies think it was beacuse it was cold a few nights a week or so ago. Anyway, Momma Duck is off the eggs and Yana fixed up the old chicken coop fence and put the babies in it with her today. I assume they will put them inside again tonight, since they are worried about them getting cold because it's September. Mint has been banished to the dog house chain, apparently he's to blame for the fact that there are seven ducklings. Yana played outside with them a few times since they hatched last week.

Sunday photos...baptism and other sights in Dnepro

Saturday we were busy with Victor's B&B guests from BC (see I told you you can come stay with us) Garry took them on a walking tour of the village in the morning, and then they went along when he went to breed a cow in a nearby village, and they saw a few more sights on the way, including the other old Mennonite cementary in the village. After a quick bowl of borsht (I was trying out the recipe that Victor's son Daniel showed me while I was home in Canada last month with some fresh beets and peppers from the garden) we all headed into Dnepropetroesk. Garry was speaking at an English class at 1:30 and I took our visitors on the number 11 tram down Robotcha street to the train station where we caught the number one tram which goes down Karl Marx and we got off at the art market and walked around checking out the paintings and crafts for sale. I spotted a red umbrella across the street and went to buy a phone card so I could give Garry a phone call at 3 pm, he had just finished and came and met us. We headed back to the village since our guests were going to accompany Maxim to Saturday evening church in Zaporoshia as they were interested in attending a Mennonite Brethren church (John is with the MB mission.) They came back charmed with Maxim's ability to speak English, and had enjoyed the worship service which had a special music group.













Sunday dawned clear and cool with the promise of a nice day, we brought our guests along with the milk and cheese for Victor's church. We had a little excitement when Garry stopped at a light in the city and we heard the sound of running milk. He put the emergency brake on and jumped out and ran to the back of the Lada. The box with the cheese had moved forward when he stopped and neatly opened the tap on the bottom of the milk jug. Good thing Garry moved fast and Max bought that plastic tray for the back of the car, it caught the liter or so that spilled. We left Peter and Alice with Victor and headed to the river.












This week Morningstar church was meeting on the island for a baptism service, and as we parked we noticed a large group of people with flags heading down the steps from the bridge of locks. As we got closer, we noticed some were dressed up, and when I said some seemed to be anime looking- blue hair, short skirts, swords, Garry remembered that one of the students in English class had mentioned some kind of anime convention this weekend. It makes sense, this city has more sushi restaurants than anywhere we're been, why not teens and twenty-somethings dressed as Japanese characters?







After we walked across the bridge, we noticed that the big statue on the island seems to be undergoing renovations (I believe it is of the writer Shevchencho) there is scaffolding around it now and his head is missing.






We walked through the children's game area, where the vendors where inflating the slides and jumping things, a a few early birds were trying the fishing game as we headed to the beach area where the service was starting.















The group was standing in a circle, singing a praise song as we walked up. I have a trouble singing in Russian without the words, but can join in the choruses on the familiar songs. We even had a stray dog join church for the day, happily settling down in the middle of the circle. Two guys and a girl were baptised in the river at the end of the service. The water in the river is rather green with algae right now, as you can see in the photo I took from the bridge. There were a few people swimming, but not many. The times I have been to baptisms there in July the water is crowded with swimmers.






















After the service there was a picnic with games and other fun. Some people thought that they might go play basketball at a different park in the city where some new fenced courts have been erected, but when Garry and I went there the gates were locked, so we rode the ferris wheel instead, before buying groceries and heading home.

looking around

Here's Maxim on his new scooter or moped (it's a Honda) he uses it to zip around the village, over to do welding for people- he finished the work on a heating system in the village last night, or visit friends or his girlfriend in the evening if the car is not available. He plans to use it to go down to his house and back, it may be ready to move in by springtime. Our shed attached to the house is locked every night now, because Maxim's wheels are in there.



Today Victor took his guests off to see some Mennonite sites, and Garry decided to take me over to see the big dairy farm in the next village (where he did some consulting) He wanted to look at the sorghum/sudangrass that they are turning into silage. Garry thinks it would be a good thing to grow - if it's a dry year when other crops won't grow, it would do well since it is grown for silage in dry areas, like Texas. It turns out they have made some mixed with corn silage, as seen here. There is still some standing in the field, and some young stuff growing back. Garry thinks Vitaly wants him to chop it for them.

Garry showed me around the farm there, so here's a few pictures:



Garry admired the nice job covering the silage pile, there are sandbags holding down the sides, and tires at the end. Garry thought the silage was rather wet, so he wonders if they will have enough to feed, as they have fed alot in the month since making it. All the cows and heifers eat the same thing, a mixture of corn silage and straw. it did not look like they are feeding any brewers grain now.





The larger heifers, dry cows and low-producing milking group are in separate lots outside, the heifers go into a barn when the weather is bad. The fresh cows are milked separate from the rest of the herd. Luba, who used to milk for us, was milking in that barn (next to the dry cow lot) when we walked through, the young heifers and calves were in there also.




They are working on building a new barn, using recycled materials, check out the huge concrete beams.








The manure is pushed out of the milking barn with a tractor with a blade like a snowplow and oozes down this slope, at some time they pile it behind the barns. They have not spread it on the fields in years, like many Ukrainian farmers, even though it would improve the soil as fertilizer.







The sound of the wind rustling in the tall grass was loud as we drove past the wet spots; this tall grass seems to grow in the swampy wet areas.
We drove there the back way through the fields, on the return trip we drove on the highway, the two lane one that goes to Nikolpol- which is a large city, the highway sign for the village just says M-Pole, in case people confuse Mnikolipole for Nikopol, I guess! In Russian it is Nikolipolia in Ukrainian it is Mikolipolia (e is pronounced yeh)





We passed by this field being planted in winter wheat on our way there, everyone was eating lunch, which is brought to the field. If you are wondering why there is a car in the field opposite to the tractors and trucks, that is the observer, he was eating in his car, while the other workers ate together because he is there to make sure everything is planted and no seed or fuel is stolen by the other workers.






When we got back Maxim was busy, the truck had come bringing the chopper back, so Garry went to help. The problem was they couldn't get the neighbour's big loader started to lift the chopper off the truck. After trying to start it for a while, they gave up and used the loader tractor, by using the plow to counterweight the weight of the chopper and they got it off. Garry says it looks OK, it looks like it was welded on the band on the hood (that's the tall part that shoots the chopped plants into the wagon) You can't see it in the photo since they took it off to transport the chopper on the truck.




Garry painted the doors on the house blue on Wednesday, even the one on the new porch door, the paint is a little sticky yet. He had a problem with flies getting stuck on the fresh paint, and Mooska seems to have rubbed up on one door frame, its got some white cat hairs on it about a foot off the ground.

You can't walk on the brewers grain

You can't walk on top of the brewers' grain pit if you are a big heifer walking back up the lane to the barn. Why? Because you'll sink into it, even though it looks solid. Just like you can't walk on the manure lagoon, right boys? A certain nine year old was a lucky boy the day he tried it- there was only a couple feet of manure and he got out, while his younger brother and friends watched. He had less luck showering and putting his clothes in the laundry to hide the evidence, because I sniffed out the story, and he still gets teased about it.

The heifers came up the lane from the road when the village herd came home about 6:20 , I saw them go past the window, and almost went out to take photos. Too bad I didn't because Garry came in with a story a while later. It seems one of the seven heifers stepped into the brewers' grain pit as she headed toward the barn. The heifers walk past the pits twice a day, everyday; but most of the time, it looks like a hole and they stay away. Most cows are convinced any hole is a bottomless pit and they avoid them, it's almost impossible to convince them to walk over or through them.

Today however, the brewers' grain pit was level with the surrounding ground, as we had a delivery yesterday. Garry did not get to cut into one of his tubes after all, as they didn't sell any on Monday, since they had been told no deliveries until Saturday. However, Garry told Victor to call back and say that he had money for another payment on the brewers' grain in the tubes (they agree to a payment plan.) Garry supposed that there was none coming this week because they were bagging it somewhere and sending all the trucks there, and they brought a load around noon Tuesday. So the people in the village were able to buy it again today to feed their cows and pigs.

So the heifer floundered around in the brewers grain, which was still pretty warm, since it had been hot when it came yesterday afternoon, and it has been feeling like summer again this week. Think sinking in quick sand I'd guess, so Garry had to get a rope around her horns and pull her out with the Boriks (the loader tractor has a name- its the brand name painted on it.) She got in the barn no worse for her adventure, just wet.

Maxim has been busy welding this week, for different people in the village, so he comes in around eight o'clock to shower and go out (he has a girlfriend.) Have I mentioned that he is buying a house in the village? It needed some work, they have cleaned up a jungle from the yard, a pile of assorted junk and treasures from the inside of the house, but discovered a large crack in the back of the house. The last day that his brother was here they took off the addition room/porch/garage off the back of the house, that's why it's two colors. (sorry photo has been trying to upload for more than an hour- maybe next time- I'm going to bed it's one am) So it seems that the way to fix this is with a band of metal around the top and bottom of the house to pull it together (or keep it from getting further apart?) and Maxim was welding there today at noontime.

Yesterday Garry asked Maxim if he is the best welder in the village, since people keep getting him to weld for them. Maxim said there is another very good welder but he is old.

Garry has a new job this fall. Since Seth and Jonah are not here, he has taken on the job of buying bread. The boys always took a break from homeschooling around 10:30 am and walked down to the store to buy our daily loaf or two of bread (along with some ice cream bars, or candy and sometimes Pepsi in little glass bottles.) Nadia at the store told Garry she really misses seeing the boys everyday, after two years. The trick is to get your bread after the truck brings it to the store everyday and before its all sold. Sometimes there isn't any in the afternoon. Garry has however discovered a new and really tasty kind of bread, when the regular stuff was sold out at the store last week. It's ochin cosnee (very tasty) so he tries to get it everyday now (its a little more expensive, but softer.)

Been rearranging the furniture - that's right children, I'm cleaning house, and with Seth and Jonah in Canada, I am getting Garry to help move furniture from room to room. If you're going to clean under something, you may as well put it in a new place!

A new week...baler for sale

Yes if you are here in Ukraine and interested in a baler, we have one for sale! Garry plans to buy one that is a little newer and makes bigger bales (still small squares I believe) for next year.



















The last couple days Maxim has been handpicking the gardens we planted in corn with a few young guys from the village. Here he is bringing a load in around seven pm in the evening. They pull the cobs off the plants and fill old feed bags full of them, and bring them home in the bucket of the loader (sometimes the guys ride in there too.) They have done two gardens I think and there are at least 24 bags full of corn cobs under the shed now.











The baby ducks are hatching! Momma hatched 2 last night and three more by morning. The ladies have taken the hatched babies into their house while Momma Duck sits on the rest- you see she's ready to defend them!
















You can see our plain (kinda ugly) pair had a variety of offspring the first time this spring, so we'll see what the new batch turn into.







No brewers grain for sale today. We can't get a delivery until maybe Friday. Garry will crack open on of the tubes they made last month to feed our own cows. He is excited to see what it looks like, and how the cows like it.

Maxim has found a couple bricklayers from the village to brick the porch on Sunday (they work in the city, it's their day off.) Garry has a few things to do on the porch before then.

on top of a Lada and Answers

Here are few on top of a Lada photos I have taken this summer. It seems I never have the camera when we see some of the best ones- like the watermelons lined up in the back window or the one in Dnepro that seemed to be trying to fly with large cardboard wings on top of it. When we got closer we realized that it was just a new steel door tied to the roof rack of an older model Lada with a layer of protective cardboard flapping in the breeze.




Banana boxes are used to carry many things including veggies This car has a classic licence plate- nowadays they only use letters in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet- EU friendly




while not a lada the bread on top of this truck in Simferopol had to be included here




Going home from work with the scaffolding






quick snapshot as we passed this Lada pulling a trailer you can't tell but it was the one full of melons- the trailer too!





Everything ...even the bathtub?







what do you do when the trunk won't stay shut? bungee cord lock






Answers


Well I will be answering last week's question. Are we Ukrainian?

Many people have wondered how we ending up here milking cows in a Ukrainian village. We do not have any Ukrainian ancestors, Garry has a great aunt who came from Ukraine to Canada after WWII I think, she married one of Garry's many Dutch relatives. All of Garry's relatives are Dutch, his Dad moved to Canada from the Netherlands as a teenager and his mother's father came to Canada before the war, as a young unmarried man. I think Garry's gramma's delicious cabbage roll recipe was from her.

My family traces its roots mostly to England and Holland, but my ancestors came to New Jersey in the 1600's before there was a United States. I do have first cousins on my mother's side whose Dad's family came from Ukraine, the Krukowskis. Uncle Mike died of cancer when I was a teenager.

Since we live in an old Mennonite house built in 1904, many people ask if we have Mennonite roots? Once again the answer is no, although we go to church in Steinbach with many people who do, and some even have family ties to this village. When we were showing pictures of Nikolipolia before we came to stay, one family said they had photos of their grandparents in front of the old school (built by the Mennonites it is still in use.) So how did we get here?

Garry went on a vision mission trip about six years ago, and when he returned he told me he felt he had been called to mission work while he was there. I said that I never should have let him go alone! However, I came to believe that he was called to mission. While we were thinking about how to make this happen, I went to Providence College in Manitoba and took a TESOL summer course (teaching English to speakers of other languages, if you are wondering) Then I drove in for another three semesters, sharing rides sometimes with our oldest son Matt, who was in seminary. Four summers ago I needed to do an overseas teaching credit and we ending up in Dnepropetroesk.

Garry came along and got excited about the idea of mission as business ...milking cows in a Ukrainian village. We spent a weekend here alone in Victor's bed and breakfast house, and the following July moved in with Seth and Jonah. The boys felt they had committed to two years, and we were making plans for them to return in December, when we go back to Canada for visa renewal. However, plans changed and they are now going to school in Canada, so they will get the whole year (Seth is due to graduate this year.)


On Friday we are expecting guests, Victor has a Canadian couple coming for a tour for five days I think. Since we are now living in the house that was Victor's bed and breakfast we get to host the occasional visitor, and it's fun to meet people who come to Ukraine to find their Mennonite roots. Victor does tours and will hunt for the village that people's ancestors are from. As many people know, I love to cook for people (when I was home in August dinner was for 18 some nights) so if you find yourself in Ukraine come stay with us!





and finally how do you keep the van shut when you can't close the doors? Lots of scotch tape! This was in Kiev...